This is an attempt to draw new Florida districts based on the initiative they just passed prohibiting gerrymandering. There are three majority-Hispanic, one majority-black, and one plurality-black district all in the state’s south end, but beyond that the lines are just geography. I tried to keep counties and metropolitan areas together, and to a lesser extent cities. This map is what I think a neutral Iowa-type commission might come up with, but in practice I think the new map is likely to end up more like Michigan in that the districts will be fairly clean but more subtly drawn to favor Republicans.
Anyway, for the districts w = Anglo, b = black, h = Hispanic, a = Asian. O = Obama, M = McCain. Numbers are voting age pop.
State map:
Miami closeup:
FL1 (blue): 77.5w-12.5b-4.6h-2.7a. Deep red. Jeff Miller (current FL1) lives here.
FL2 (green): 68.6w-23.0b-4.8h-2.8a. Should still be likely R. Steve Southerland (current FL2) lives here.
FL3 (purple): 59.2w-27.6b-7.0h-4.2a. This is nothing like the current FL3, which is plurality-black but not remotely compact. This proposed FL3 is about 1 point more black than Duval county as a whole, which is about R+4. This new version is maybe R+2 or R+3 (lean R). Corrine Brown (current FL3) probably lives here but would be too liberal to win this version.
FL4 (red): 75.9w-14.9b-5.4h-2.1a. Also deep red, not too far off the current FL4. Ander Crenshaw (current FL4) probably doesn’t live here but could run here.
FL5 (yellow): 73.8w-13.4b-8.5h-2.8a. This would be a competitive district as it includes the college town of Gainesville. It’s basically Levy (M12-O7), Alachua (O73-M47), Marion (M90-O71), and Putnam (M19-O13). Collectively that’s roughly M168-O164 or about R+4. Cliff Stearns (current FL6) lives here but could potentially lose this to a blue dog.
FL6 (teal): 79.3w-8.9b-8.7h-1.8a. Has St Johns (M69-O36), Flagler (O25-M24), and most of Volusia (O127-M113). Resembles the current FL7 whose rep John Mica does not live here. Probably likely R.
FL7 (gray): 65.2w-8.5b-20.9h-3.7a. Orlando area district with Seminole (M105-O99) and generally whiter parts of Orange (O272-M186). Lean R? Mica and Dan Webster (current FL8) both live here, and Sandy Adams (current FL24) probably does too.
FL8 (blue-gray): 43.7w-25.0b-23.3h-5.4a. Western Orange. The whole county is D+6 and this end has more minorities so it’s probably likely D to safe D. Even Alan Grayson could hold this.
FL9 (toothpaste blue): 77.1w-7.5b-10.7h-3.0a. Southern Volusia, eastern Orange, and most of Brevard (M157-O127). Should be lean R to likely R. Adams could probably run here as it overlaps with most of her current district. Bill Posey (current FL15) also lives here.
FL10 (pink): 83.4w-6.2b-7.8h-1.3a. Four very red counties containing much of the current FL5. There isn’t going to be any free for all here, because Richard Nugent has a stranglehold on this district. Safe R.
FL11 (pea soup green): 84.9w-3.3b-8.5h-2.1a. Pasco (M110-O102) and north Pinellas (O244-M207). Lean R? Gus Bilirakis (current FL9) lives here.
FL12 (light blue): 77.6w-10.6b-7.1h-3.1a. South Pinellas, mostly St Pete. Lean D? The county is D+0 to D+1 and this is probably the more liberal end of it. I think Bill Young (current FL10) lives here.
FL13 (pink-gray): 52.3w-16.8b-25.4h-3.6a. Mostly Tampa, lots of overlap with current deep-blue FL11 whose rep Kathy Castor probably lives here. Lean D to Likely D?
FL14 (olive): 67.3w-10.7b-17.8h-2.7a. East Pinellas, north Manatee. No incumbent. Lean R to likely R?
FL15 (orange): 59.1w-12.0b-25.3h-2.0a. Maybe 2/3 of Polk (M129-O114) and Osceola (O59-M39). Toss up? Dennis Ross (current FL12) lives here.
FL16 (garden hose green): 72.5w-8.2b-16.6h-1.5a. This spacious hinterland district had to take a chunk of the coast because there weren’t quite enough people in the interior counties. No incumbent. McCain won all of these counties. Likely R to safe R.
FL17 (indigo): 85.1w-3.7b-8.9h-1.2a. Most of Sarasota, Charlotte, north Lee. Likely R? Connie Mack (current FL14) appears to live just outside.
FL18 (yellow): 74.8w-10.8b-11.7h-1.4a. South Brevard, Indian River (M40-O30), St Lucie (O67-M52), Martin (M44-O33), a little bit of northeast Palm Beach. Lean R to likely R? I think Tom Rooney (current FL16) lives in the little bit.
FL19 (money green): 64.1w-11.2b-20.9h-2.4a. Mostly the less-black parts of north Palm Beach, and takes a contorted shape in order to make FL23 plurality-black. Probably lean D to likely D. The whole county is D+8, although the bluest parts are in FL23. Apparently no incumbent. Lois Frankel, who plans to run against West, probably lives here.
FL20 (pale pink): 70.5w-6.6b-20.7h-1.3a. Collier, much of Lee, a bit of Miami-Dade. Safe R. Mack lives here.
FL21 (red-brown): 72.2w-9.7b-13.6h-2.8a. South Palm Beach, north Broward. Ted Deutch (current FL19) lives here. Likely D to safe D?
FL22 (sky blue): 58.8w-9.1b-27.2h-3.2a. Much of southern and eastern Broward, which is D+14 overall. Probably safe D. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (current FL20) lives here, and probably Allen West (current FL22) also does. That would be entertaining, although it wouldn’t be close.
FL23 (light blue-green): 32.0w-46.0b-17.6h-2.3a. This plurality-black district would probably produce a black rep so I would guess it would be VRA compliant. It looks compact, but it’s really a big cluster in the middle of Palm Beach, another big cluster in the middle of Broward, and the smaller Pahokee and Belle Glade areas on lake Okeechobee connected together by lots and lots of empty space. No incumbent either, unless West lives here. Safe D.
FL24 (purple): 28.8w-4.9b-63.6h-1.8a. After you carve out a majority-black district, what’s left of Dade will necessarily be majority-Hispanic. This overlaps with much of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s current FL18. Lean R?
FL25 (raw hamburger): 12.1w-52.6b-31.0h-2.4a. You can carve out a nice majority-black district that looks sort of like a mini-Florida from interior north Dade and the south end of Broward. Frederica Wilson (current FL17) and Alcee Hastings (current FL23) both live here. Safe D.
FL26 (gray): 6.1w-2.1b-90.6h-1.0a. Ninety percent! Seems to overlap with much of Mario Diaz-Balart’s current FL21. Lean R?
FL27 (sea foam green): 22.7w-11.1b-63.1h-1.9a. This overlaps with much of David Rivera’s current FL25 which is R+5, but loses a piece of Collier county that is 9% black and 43% Hispanic (the rest of the county is just 3% black and 11% Hispanic) so it probably isn’t anywhere near the county’s overall PVI of R+15. Probably still lean R to likely R if its new areas in Dade county aren’t much different from its old ones.
If my estimates of these districts are correct, this map is 18-8-1 considering only the partisan lean of the districts, but about half of the “red” districts would be competitive whereas the only really competitive “blue” district is probably FL12 in St. Pete. In practice I think this map would be in the range of 17R-10D to 15R-12D in most years. The current map has just 5 districts with a PVI of +4 or less one way or the other. I think this map would have considerably more, which should make for the more competitive elections the voters said they wanted this past November.
Thoughts? I don’t know this state well at all and would appreciate any pointers about these proposed districts.
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That I will be posting as soon as I compile all the data. I like what you did, I do however have some reservations. Why dismantle VRA districts like the 3rd? Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Florida is a preclearance state.
Some differences we have:
I kept the 3rd largely as it is now (black plurality).
I created a hispanic plurality district south of Orlando centered in Kissimmee.
I kept the 17th as VRA black.
Other than that our maps are very similar.
turkey/non partisan commission map.
Then I saw something amazing.
The amazing thing was: a Florida that is not gerrymandered to hell and back.
If the outer part of Duval County is as Republican as the surrounding counties (70% McCain) then the 3rd district would be about 55% Obama.
Still, her district is VRA and thus can’t be retrogressed. Still, could they draw her an east-to-west district that takes in Tallahassee at its west end while being relatively compact?
Hi! I’ve finished my own version of Florida’s Congressional redistricting map and I’m about to post it after my write-up at the US Election Atlas forum and cross-post in to RRH as well (Is RRH also on the same platform as here? Thanks!) I’d like to know how to link to images on my online album to here. Also, I may also post series on Florida’s State Legislative redistricting in the near future. Hope that someone can help. Thanks!
31, Male, Independent, MS-02 (Hometown FL-19)
in your ananlysis for CD14 I believe you meant Eastern Hillsborough not Pinellas :p
And that would be a Lean R to Likely R I’d guess R+4-6. The area is getting bluer with Puerto Rican population increasing but still it’s the suburbs with some rural areas like plant city. By 2020 The PVI may be closer ro R+1 or 2